Crambler [none/use name]

Good news, albeit unsurprisingly close due predictably frustrating detroit results. Wish they could have found somebody to contest the governors race too though. Could have made it a data center referendum and probably won handily. People hate that shit and Benson is literally married to the industry.

Iran doesn’t seem to be doing much to deliberately tank markets (e.g. big missile salvo right after trump announces another fictitious deal to juice the indexes) which seems odd to me, as it’s the one lever that clearly scares trump enough to make him back off. But on the other hand, keeping the straight closed should on its own eventually lead to drained reserves and oil prices that cannot be manipulated lower. At which point you would think Japan’s inflation would get so bad they’d have to raise rates and blow up the carry trade. Surprised they didn’t raise them last week. Doesn’t seem like currency intervention is a long term solution on that, but I guess has worked so far, so who knows.

I don’t understand what is happening right now. Everything that led the US to back off the last time still applies. Dwindling standoff and AD stockpiles. Economic pressures of strait closure (now x 2), invincible missile bases and debasification, etc.

They just tried doing the same thing they were doing before, and it of course didn’t work. If you aren’t going to seriously escalate, what was even the point of starting up again, let alone moving tons of new equipment to the region?

I guess maybe escalation is still the plan and this pause is a just a ploy, but if not, it seems all this achieved was to put the US in an even worse bargaining position than before. All 100% predictable. What gives?

How does this compare to movements during earlier phases of the war? Do you think it necessarily signals a buildup for an escalation or more extended campaign, like in February? Or is it not all that different from movement patterns throughout the war later on?

Strange. Was seeing a lot of stuff suggesting tonight would be a big escalation after the strikes in jordan. Calm before the storm while they shuffle assets around, or cold feet about inviting what is sure to be an even more painful Iranian response? Don’t know what to make of it.

Not really news related and maybe its just me, but I suddenly can’t load any telegram pages. I just use the “preview channel” thing rather than the app so maybe that’s part of it but idk. Really messing with my ability to monitor the situation by constantly refreshing 15 different feeds.

Already hit Saudi airport. I’ve also seen a “senior Yemeni official” statement that bab al mandeb will be closed. That seems more speculative, but things are definitely heating up. Decision to defy the siege seems well timed and I think we will see these conflicts linked more directly in days to come.

Very difficult to say re the oil, but I’m skeptical that they’ve bought that much more time. Seems like inventories just keep going down and the SOH traffic never picked back up enough to meaningfully change that during the ceasefire. But there’s been some stuff that no one anticipated, like China drastically cutting imports and the wild price manipulation on crude, presumably by US treasury shorting it. I’d really like to believe that a crisis is just around the corner, but on the other hand, oil markets are impossible to understand right now. And its hard to see trump deciding to escalate now if we were actually that close to the breaking point. He sure does seem to be escalating though.